ANNUAL REVIEW 2015 DELIVERING IMPACT · Non-IKC Research Grant Funding ... CSIC Annual Review 2015...

sensorsassetscities

DELIVERINGIMPACT

Cambridge Centre forSmart Infrastructureand Construction

ANNUAL REVIEW 2015

IMPACTnoun: a marked effect or influence verb: have a strong effect on someone or something

CSIC deployment team installing fibre optictemperature and strain cables on a pile at theVictoria and Albert Museum, London

CSIC www.centreforsmartinfrastructure.com Annual Review 2015 1

Transforming the futureof infrastructure throughsmarter information

ContentsIntelligent infrastructure: building a better future 2Working with industry: delivering change 4Addressing industry challenges and ambitions 6Structured success: applying innovative tools and technologies 10Understanding structures 13Why measure? Adding value to decision making 16Assets: moving mindsets from least-cost to best-value approach 18Reshaping cities through smart infrastructure 21Delivering thought leadership: working with industry, government 24and academiaAwards, nominations and media 25Driving innovation into practice 26CSIC’s Industry Partners 28

Steering GroupProfessor John Burland CBE, Imperial College (Chair)Dr Keith Bowers, London Underground Alan Couzens, Infrastructure UKTim Embley, CostainRab Fernie, formerly Technical Director, Cementation SkanskaTom Foulkes, Victoria BIDSteve Hornsby, Independent ConsultantProfessor Robert Mair CBE, CSIC, University of CambridgeProfessor Duncan McFarlane, CSIC, University of CambridgeProfessor Andrew McNaughton, HS2Professor Campbell Middleton, CSIC, University of CambridgeRichard Ploszek, Royal Academy of Engineering & Infrastructure UK Dr Jennifer Schooling, CSIC DirectorProfessor Kenichi Soga, CSIC, University of CambridgeDr Scott Steedman CBE, British Standards Institute (BSI)John St Leger, Strainstall UK LtdPaul Westbury CBE, Laing O’RourkeProfessor Ian White, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

International Advisory Group Professor Tom O’Rourke (Chair), Cornell University, USAProfessor Yozo Fujino, University of Tokyo, JapanProfessor Bill Spencer, University of Illinois, USAProfessor Paul Wright, University of California, Berkeley, USAProfessor Hehua Zhu,Tongji University, China

Cover photograph by Peter Knott, CSIC: Instrumentation of a pile at theNewfoundland Tower site at Canary Wharf, London

20Awards and Shortlistings

389Trained by

CSIC

41Industry Partners

636Publications and

Citations

81Site

Demonstrations

£954,154Commercial Income

£13.8MNon-IKC ResearchGrant Funding

£Cumulative figures from 2012 toMarch 2015

INTELLIGENT INFRASTRUCTURE:BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE“The Institution of CivilEngineers (ICE) State of theNation 2014 reportemphasises how vitalinfrastructure is to oursociety – our quality of lifedepends on it functioningeffectively and our relianceon it becomes painfullyevident when infrastructuresystems fail”

CSIC team working through the nightinstrumenting beams for StaffordshireAlliance railway bridges at the LaingO'Rourke Explore Manufacturing facility

The key aim of the Centre for SmartInfrastructure and Construction (CSIC) is thatemerging technologies from world-leadingresearch at the University of Cambridge willtransform the construction industry through awhole-life approach to achieving sustainabilityin construction and infrastructure in anintegrated way.

These emerging technologies include fibreoptics, wireless sensor networks, energyharvesting, micro electro mechanical systems(MEMS) and computer vision. Crucial elementsof these technologies are the innovativeapplication of the latest sensor technologiesand data management tools to the constructionindustry, both during infrastructure constructionand throughout its design life. As an Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC), thekey objective of CSIC is to integrate theseinnovations for knowledge transfer andexploitation by industry.

The impact of CSIC’s activities and theapplication of its tools and technologies will bemajor transformations in the approaches to thedesign, construction and use of complexinfrastructure – leading to step changes in:• improved health and productivity• greater efficiency in design and

performance• a low-carbon society• sustainable urban planning and

management

To secure these transformations theconstruction and infrastructure industry mustadvance economically and sustainably.

By working with our Industry Partners, CSIC develops, deploys and delivers thetools and technologies that bring thisopportunity. The aim is to deliver value toindustry by:

• improving margins• reducing costs• enhancing returns• extending productive life of assets

There will be very substantial UK andinternational markets for exploitation of thesenew technologies by the construction industry –particularly for contractors, specialistinstrumentation companies and owners of infrastructure.

CSIC’s aims acknowledge the essential placeinfrastructure has in society. The UKGovernment’s National Infrastructure Plan 2014highlights the strong economic case forinfrastructure investment: • it emphasises the need for successful

delivery – projects delivered faster, betterand more cost-effectively

• it highlights as a key priority the necessityto develop best practice to inform industryhow infrastructure projects should bemanaged and run

• it stresses the need for improved assetmanagement and whole-life principles –central to CSIC’s objectives

CSIC aims to transform the future ofinfrastructure through smarter information. This is fully aligned to the Government’sConstruction 2025 report published in 2013highlighting the importance of building the UK’s competitive advantage by investing insmart construction and digital design. The report emphasises:• how new technologies and digital

techniques have already made a hugeimpact in other industries

• how in the coming years thesetechnologies will drive a step change inhow we build and how our builtenvironment will be operated

• how crucial it is that the emergence of newtechnologies in sensors and datamanagement become embedded in ourassets, enabling performance to beconstantly monitored, driving substantialefficiency gains in facilities and assetmanagement. This will provide owners witha full understanding of the performance oftheir assets, both during construction andthroughout their design life – a fundamentalaim of CSIC

CSIC is putting into practice a number of keyactions recommended by ICE’s State of theNation 2014 report which will improve andenhance performance, and ensure that ourinfrastructure is resilient when faced with themany challenges ahead – from climate changeto population growth. Recommended actionsinclude the following:• commitment to a regime of planned,

preventative maintenance. This keyobjective is underpinned by CSIC’s sensingand data analysis models that provide


Professor Robert Mair Head of CSIC Head of Civil Engineering University of Cambridge Vice President, ICE

impact by enabling smarter, proactiveasset decision-making for industry

• engineering professionals should simplifyand speed up the standards changeprocess. CSIC is collaborating with BSIand producing best-practice guides (to bepublished by the ICE) for immediate use byindustry on recent innovations affectingnew industry standards: fibre optic strainsensing; wireless sensor networks forinfrastructure monitoring; structural healthmonitoring for bridges; and assetmanagement (whole-life value-baseddecision making). A Smart Cities series ofreports is also being produced on King’sCross and London Bridge stations, and onretail areas around stations

• professional engineering teams should beseconded directly into latter stages ofsignificant research projects with the tasksof implementing the benefits fromacademic research, so that they can bepractically and efficiently applied to meetthe UK’s infrastructure needs. CSIC’shighly effective deployment team, whichincludes secondees from industry, tests,develops and improves the latest sensortechnologies on live construction sites andon existing infrastructure. More than 80 field demonstrations have beenimplemented by CSIC, and trainingcourses have been run to transfer theknowledge immediately to industry

As this Annual Review demonstrates, there hasbeen substantial impact of CSIC’s activities interms of the wide variety of technologies (fibreoptic strain measurement, UtterBerry ultra-lowpower wireless sensor motes, and vibrationenergy harvesting devices) recently deployedon real construction and infrastructure sites.These have been applied to a considerablevariety of structures, including Crossrail,National Grid, the Royal Mail Tunnel andCERN tunnels, masonry arches at LondonBridge and railway bridges in Staffordshire.

These ground-breaking deployments haveinvolved 41 Industry Partners, and resulted in20 awards and shortlistings, and more than 600 publications, reports and citations. Newapproaches to futureproofing of assets havebeen demonstrated, as well as new methods ofmodelling and analysing the behaviour of cities.CSIC has also had considerable impact interms of thought leadership, both in the UK andinternationally through keynote lectures,workshops and training courses.

Combined, these achievements are a measureof CSIC’s effective commitment to improve thequality and efficiency of our nation’sinfrastructure.

WORKING WITH INDUSTRY:DELIVERING CHANGE“The work of CSIC enables21st century infrastructure tobe planned, constructed andoperated using 21st centurytechniques”

Proposed HS2 train and high-speed rail network.Picture courtesy of HS2 Ltd


The work of CSIC is taking place at aparticularly significant point in Britain’sdevelopment. It is widely acknowledged bygovernment, industry and society thatconsiderable and continuing investment ininfrastructure, in all its forms, is essential forour nation to prosper.

In order to create new and effectiveinfrastructure we must first identify andunderstand the changing needs of a moderngrowing country, including new commercial,housing, transport and services constructionthroughout our major cities. This is incrediblychallenging; England is the most denselypopulated country in the European Union, with precious countryside between our urban centres.

CSIC’s output presents opportunities to make major improvements in how we create new infrastructure.

CSIC works closely with Industry Partners todevelop technologies and tools to solveindustry challenges, offering new approachesto construction based on precise, site-specificinstrumentation and measurement, rather than generalised, conservative standards and assumptions.

World-beating advantagesAdopting smarter methods brings the prospectof improving the efficiency of the constructionprocess through real-time monitoring ofcondition as construction proceeds, andproviding the automated assurance of designand construction without difficult anddisruptive testing.

The early implementation of the techniquesand tools developed within the CSICprogramme offers world-beating advantagesto major transport programmes, including HS2and new water, energy, sewerage andconstruction projects.

The ability to tailor design and constructionprecisely to specific ground conditions willlead to savings of cost and resources.Importantly, it will allow work to be completedmore efficiently and with greater certaintywhich means those communities neighbouringconstruction works should see less disruptionover a shorter period of time.

Continued assuranceSubsequently, the asset owners will have a continuing assurance of performance ensuring only the right maintenance isscheduled at the right time, giving continuingwhole-life benefits both for operating cost and maintenance.

CSIC’s academic work has always beengrounded in a close cooperation with theconstruction industry – practitioners and asset owners alike. As a result this work has remained firmly focussed on real needs. Together, CSIC and the industry have the opportunity to export this new know-how internationally.

Professor AndrewMcNaughton Technical Director High Speed Two (HS2) Ltdand member of the CSIC Steering Group

“Put simply, the work of CSICenables 21st centuryinfrastructure to be planned,constructed and operatedusing 21st century techniques.I can speak for the industry inbeing proud of what CSIC hasachieved so far, and lookforward to continuingbreakthroughs to put thiscountry ahead of the world.”

ADDRESSING INDUSTRYCHALLENGES AND AMBITIONS

CSIC on site at National Grid PowerTunnel, London

“By creating, managing and

implementing innovations, CSIC

continues to lead through

example, demonstration and

support, enabling industry to

exploit novel technical

advances at the earliest

opportunity to deliver a

world-class construction,

infrastructure and asset-

management industry”


Our Annual Review showcases another yearof great progress for CSIC.

As you will read in this review, CSIC hasincreased on-site demonstration projects witha further 31 deployments. This is in large partthanks to the efforts of our deployment team –four research engineers, two technicians and four secondees from industry – who havespent much of their time working inchallenging conditions to deliver realimplementations of CSIC solutions and buildindustry confidence in the innovations beingproduced by CSIC and its Industry Partners.CSIC’s technologies continue to go fromstrength to strength, with a win for the SmartTunnel at the 2014 International TunnellingAwards, and six other nominations and awardsin the last 12 months.

CSIC has matured as an organisation,crystallising our delivery model for translatingresearch into innovation in practice, as shownbelow (Figure 1).

This model enables us to build on the excellentresearch taking place in the Department ofEngineering here in Cambridge, and also tointroduce innovations from Industry Partnersand other universities at any point in theprocess. The key elements to success are:• demonstration – to build industry

confidence, and provide feedback toiterate the solutions

• scale-up and standardisation activities – to bring the innovations to a level ofmaturity that industry can use, includingrobust hardware, appropriate dataanalysis tools and frameworks, and bestpractice guidance

• enabling implementation and exploitation– including raising industry awarenessthrough dissemination, developing trainingfor industry in the use of the innovativetechniques and tools, and providing inputto standards to enable industry to specifysolutions with confidence in the quality ofthe outcome

CSIC’s activities in these areas have grownsignificantly in the last year; we now have arange of best practice guides in development,which will be published with ICE, and severalindustry training courses have been delivered.

CSIC is actively working to develop supplychain networks, and is providing workshops on‘Emerging Technologies for Infrastructure andConstruction’, where solution suppliers andrepresentatives from the infrastructure andconstruction industries are brought together toexplore potential applications. By conveningand facilitating events where industryparticipants can meet and discuss thechallenges of their businesses, CSIC createsthe opportunity for strategic knowledge to flowbetween different market sectors, allowingbetter solutions to be generated.

CSIC continues to focus activity at a range ofscales, as shown by Figure 2 (overleaf) whichshows the interrelationship between thedifferent physical scales of CSIC’s work, andrepresents the core foundation that our focuson sensors and data analysis andinterpretation provides to all our activity.

Dr Jennifer SchoolingDirector of CSICUniversity of Cambridge

Proof of ConceptDeveloping and validating solutions for trial

Cutting Edge R&DCreating technologies, approaches and solutions

Demonstration and Case StudiesBuilding confidence, iterating solutions

Scale-up and StandardisationDeveloping robust solutions, data analysis tools (input to), best-practice guidance,

codes and specifications

Enabling Implementation and ExplorationTraining for industry, developing supply-chain networks, input tostandards, dissemination to enable large scale uptake by industry

Time

Tech

nolo

gy R

eadi

ness

Lev

el

Figure 1 – CSIC’s delivery model, showing the stages of research translation withincreasing technology readiness level and time of an innovation's life cycle

CSIC takes a whole-life approach toinfrastructure, from design to construction,operation, maintenance and decommissioning,focusing on ensuring that the asset providesvalue throughout its life. All of our activityultimately aims to transform the future ofinfrastructure and construction through smarterinformation – providing decision makers at allpoints in an asset’s lifetime with theinformation they need to make informed,value-based decisions. The later sections ofthis review clearly illustrate this with a range ofcase studies demonstrating the impact CSIC ishaving on industry.

The last year has also seen CSIC’s staffnumbers grow. There are now 38 staff and 15PhD students working in the centre,collaborating with the 12 leading Centre Co-Investigators. In addition, we host summerstudents and masters students for researchprojects, which provides a significantopportunity to influence and encourage thenext generation of engineers in infrastructureand construction.

In addition to the growth in staff and studentnumbers, we have been pleased to welcome a number of new CSIC partners over the last

year, including CERN, GeotechnicalObservations and Topcon, increasing our industry reach and broadening ourcollaboration.

By creating, managing and implementinginnovations, CSIC continues to lead throughexample, demonstration and support, enabling industry to exploit novel technicaladvances at the earliest opportunity to delivera world-class construction, infrastructure andasset-management industry.

• What economic value does our infrastructurecreate?

• How does our infrastructure best serve ourcommunities?

• What form should our infrastructure take?

• How do we operate, manage and maintain ourassets to deliver best whole-life value?

• How do we futureproof our assets againstchanging requirements and against shocks?

• What decisions do we need to take to do so?

• What information do we need to make thosedecisions?

• How do we best design, construct and monitorour structures to deliver the performance weneed?

• What data do we need to do this, and how dowe interpret it?

• What sensors are needed to measure theperformance of our structures, assets andcities?

• How can we make them robust?

• How do we analyse the data to give reliable,meaningful results?

Figure 2 – CSIC's three spatial scales of activityare underpinned by innovation in sensors anddata interpretation

ASSETS

CITIES ANDINFRASTRUCTURE

SYSTEMS

Information Requirements

and BIM

STRUCTURES

SENSORS AND DATA INTERPRETATION

Value of Infrastructure


Basic

readiness

Cities and

systems

Rail

Road

Water

Energy

Flood

defences

Waste and

resources

Buildings

Demand forecasting

Infrastructure planning tools

Real-time pedestrian monitoring

Adaptive zoning

Whole-life management of infrastructure assets

Futureproofing methods

BIM (Building information modelling) level 3 for structural health monitoring

3D digital model creation

Deployment projects

Wireless sensor networksprotocols

Wireless sensor networkshardware

Lightweight, low-cost fibre optic analyser

Fibre optics for structural health monitoring

Fibre optics for construction monitoring

Fibre optics for performance-based design

Digital image correlation

Computer vision for change detection

Vibration energy harvesting

CSIC project progress Key

= Proof of concept = Demonstration = Scale up and standardisation

= Progress to date 2014 = Expected progress mid-2016

= Enabling implementation

Technology

CSIC is unrivalled in its development ofemerging and innovative sensor technologies,deploying them at some of the UK’s largestinfrastructure projects including Crossrail,National Grid and the Staffordshire Alliance.

As an international centre of excellence insensors, CSIC leads the way in deploying andtesting new technologies to detect and monitorinfrastructure performance and anomalies.

CSIC is more than a think tank – it turns theory into action, trialling new innovativesensor technologies and data interpretationmethods at real field sites and buildingindustry confidence in new technologies. This year, we have conducted more than 30 field demonstrations.

CSIC’S sensing technologies CSIC does not rely on any single technologybut works on a variety to find the appropriatedevice or set of technologies for specificindustry applications. This year:• CSIC has trialled various fibre optic

sensing technologies using commerciallyavailable analysers (e.g. Brillouin, Ramanand Fibre Bragg techniques) but is alsocurrently developing our own analysersspecifically for civil engineeringapplications

• CSIC has developed different wirelesssensor network (WSN) systems.UtterBerry is a highly optimised WSNsystem with a closed architecture. CSIChas also developed an open source WSNsystem; the communication software isopen source and the hardware informationis available to the public

• CSIC has prototyped a new vibrationenergy harvester, and launched a newstart-up with venture capital investment

Data interpretation CSIC provides ideas for new engineeringinterpretation, which are required becausenew sensors often produce engineeringdatasets not previously available. Forexample, some fibre optic technologiesprovide a continuous set of strain data alongthe fibre optic cable embedded in or attachedto the structures. Engineers are familiar withpoint-wise displacement or strain data atselected points of the structures. However, the new continuous data requires a differentapproach to look at how the structures arebehaving – more data means more thinking isneeded to make the data useful.

Secondees from industry are helping CSIC to develop a new thinking process that is of direct use to engineering practice.The combination of new sensors with newdata interpretation is the unique selling point of CSIC.

CSIC continues to invest in developing anddeploying new technologies as a community ofinnovators. We are now producing spin-outcompanies including, for example, a newvibration energy harvesting company, 8Power,which features the parametric resonance IPdeveloped by CSIC researchers. CSICcollaborates with Industry Partners to createintellectual property and commercial products,including a recently filed patent on fibre optictechnology (with Skanska and Arup) and ourSmart Foundation software.

The following pages highlight some of ourachievements and impact.

STRUCTURED SUCCESS:APPLYING INNOVATIVE TOOLSAND TECHNOLOGIES

Professor Kenichi Soga Co-Investigator, CSICProfessor of CivilEngineering University of Cambridge


The technology CSIC’s innovative vibration energy harvesting (VEH) and low-powersensing technologies enable a new approach to distributedautonomous structural health monitoring.

The VEH technologies complement or replace existing batterysolutions, providing enabling technology for long-term conditionmonitoring of assets in a range of remote and/or inaccessible locations.

Vibration energy harvesting can potentially provide a convenient,self-sustaining on-board power solution to complement emergingwireless sensor technologies – the smarter power backbone to theever-growing wireless infrastructure.

ApplicationsThese devices address a number of applications for wireless sensorsin structural health monitoring, industrial process control andenvironmental monitoring. The team is currently engaged inintegrating the harvesters with a variety of wireless sensor modulesfor monitoring transport-related infrastructure such as bridges andrail track. A significant deployment is planned for the Forth RoadBridge in Scotland later this year.

Impact and benefits• fully packaged macro-scale vibration energy harvesters based on

the principle of parametric resonance have undergone successfullaboratory tests demonstrating peak power output of greater than100mW. Ongoing work is addressing integration with wirelesssensors and preliminary field trials with Industry Partners

• MEMS-scale harvesters have been developed with peak poweroutput of up to 20µW with a design pathway outlined towardsachieving peak output power of greater than 100µW

• MEMS-scale harvesters have been utilised to successfully powerinterface circuits for a MEMS strain gauge enabling thepossibility of self-powered sensors and ‘event-triggered’operations for wireless motes

• patents underlying this technology have been filed throughCambridge Enterprise and a spin-out company, 8Power, is beingformed to commercialise the technology

• the team has been awarded a new Innovate UK project todevelop the MEMS-scale vibration energy harvesting technology

Vibration energy harvestingYu Jia, Ashwin Seshia

The technology UtterBerry sensors are miniature, wireless, ultra-low power sensorscombined with artificial intelligence, specifically designed forinfrastructure monitoring.

UtterBerry is easily installed in unsafe or difficult-to-access sites toperform on-board calculations deriving acceleration, inclination anddisplacement in real-time without human intervention.

Sensors are self-calibrating and optimise their data communicationswithin the sensor network according to conditions. They collect,process, interpret and analyse data, reporting it to users remotelyon any internet-enabled device.

Applications April 2014 marked the first commercial application of UtterBerry at a closed shaft at Crossrail’s Eleanor Street site in London.Contractors needed to monitor the area during excavation work andthe UtterBerry system was installed in one day by one person.

The technology enabled surveyors to safely monitor the tunnel fromtheir offices. Data was available immediately, including temperatureand humidity readings that flagged up the presence of water in theshaft, helping to identify a broken pump.

Impact and benefits • safety – wireless capability means no personnel are required to

enter potentially unsafe environments after installation • accuracy – high levels of accuracy and repeatability of

acceleration, tilt and displacement data have been achieved • low power – the smallest, lowest power consumption and

intelligent monitoring option on the market• speed and ease of installation – lightweight and small size • robustness – sensors strong enough to meet all conditions • longevity – can be deployed for years without maintenance or

battery changes

“The UtterBerry system is an innovation thatcould become the standard for futuremonitoring across the construction industry. Itis 100 per cent remote, uses almost no power,is very robust, highly accurate and wascheaper than both the traditional alternativesfor its application at the Eleanor Street site.There’s no doubt it could be used in manydifferent applications.”

Nigel Marsh, Senior Surveyor at Costain

The UtterBerry wireless sensors for civilinfrastructure monitoringHeba Bevan

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Heba Bevan, inventor of the UtterBerry at the Eleanor Street shaft, LondonBorough of Tower Hamlets

Vibration energy harvesting sensors

“The new vibration energy harvesting technologydeveloped by CSIC is a world-class innovationwith several large potential markets. A keybenefit of CSIC is the level of contacts andinsight the team has developed. This will be ofgreat value as we build the business case forthe spin-out 8Power.”

Robert Trezona, IP Group plc

The technologyThe use of distributed fibre optic (FO) sensors for the monitoring ofcivil structures and infrastructure opens exciting new possibilitiesunmatched in conventional sensor systems.

Engineering design limits are often based on strain and/or stressdeveloping in the structure. For structures interacting with soil (e.g.underground infrastructure such as foundations, tunnels or pipelines),the ground loads are distributed spatially (not point loads); thereforethe state of the structure cannot be fully understood unless thecomplete in situ strain regime is known.

The use of a single optical fibre with a length of up to tens ofkilometres of continuous sensing elements makes it possible to obtaina body of invaluable information on the strain and temperaturedistribution in civil infrastructure assets. CSIC has developed datainterpretation methods that utilise new continuous data forengineering assessment of piles, tunnels, retaining walls, pipelines,slopes and bridges.

In collaboration with Industry Partners, CSIC is developing a FOapplication methodology that is applicable to civil engineeringstructures. It considers the whole-life cycle of FO monitoring fromplanning, deployment, operation and decommissioning. CSIC is alsoproducing a FO guidance document, which will be available from ICE,publishing in late 2015.

ApplicationsCSIC’s fibre optic technologies have been applied to provide insightsinto structural performance and design, to monitor the constructionprocess and for structural health monitoring. In the last year,applications included understanding sprayed concrete linings inCrossrail’s London Liverpool Street Station and instrumentingconcrete tunnels in CERN and piles and buttress walls at the LondonBridge Station redevelopment.

Impact and benefits• the distributed FO technology for measuring strains and

temperatures provides a unique dataset, which engineers did nothave before

• applied to piles, FO technology will provide displacement profilesalong the pile enabling the soil-pile interaction to be evaluatedmore accurately. Anomalies inside the piles that may influencethe overall pile performance are also identified

• the material of optical fibre is silica, which lasts for decades.When the cable is embedded in structures during themanufacturing process, the sensors will remain operational formany years

• the analyser, which is external to the structure, can be evolvedover time to provide continual improvements in the quality of thedata gathered

• the potential impact of this technology for civil infrastructuredesign, construction and maintenance is significant, providingasset owners and engineers with new data that has not beenaccessible until now

New data sets present new challenges – we must now decide howdata will be interpreted and used for smarter design, construction andmaintenance of civil engineering infrastructure.

Impact of fibre optic technologiesKenichi Soga, Robert Mair

“I’ve worked with CSIC over the past four yearsto implement fibre optics into pile testing. Thecontinuous strain enables an impressivelydetailed understanding of load transfer fromthe pile to the soil, which is extremely useful inmulti layered soils such as those encounteredin the Canary Wharf site in East London.Another advantage is that fibre optics take upvery little space in a congested pile comparedwith conventional instrumentation systems. Wesee many exciting opportunities for pilingapplications in the future.”

Duncan Nicholson, Director, Arup

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On-site splicing of fibre optic cable at the James Dyson Building, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. Picture courtesy of Darren Carter, Morgan Sindall


UNDERSTANDING STRUCTURESThe projectHundreds of kilometres of London’s tunnel and pipe infrastructure aremade of cast iron and many London Underground tunnels are nowbetween 50 and 150 years old. Better assessment of their conditionhas become an increasingly significant issue for maintenance andcalculation of residual life.

Currently new tunnels are being built close to London’s ageing tunnelnetwork. CSIC Industry Partner, Crossrail, is in the process ofbuilding a £15 billion subterranean rail link crossing the city over adistance of around 21km. This project has presented newengineering challenges – never before have new tunnels been dug inLondon so close, parallel and perpendicular to existing tunnels oversuch a long distance.

Crossrail engineers faced uncertainty about the likely modes andlevels of deformation of existing tunnels. In this case, no onetechnology could provide the required mode of deformationinformation for Crossrail. CSIC combined a selection of devices tocollect the data.

As cities grow, there will be a pressing need to build new structuresclose to existing pieces of infrastructure, both in the UK and abroad.

ApplicationsWorking with Industry Partners Arup, CH2M HILL and iMETRUM,CSIC deployed a team of researchers to install four differentpioneering monitoring devices at specific locations inside a 40-metrestretch of the disused, 100-year-old Royal Mail tunnel, at Crossrail’sLiverpool Street Station, where the new tunnel was being constructedparallel beneath it.

The same technologies were also deployed at London Underground’sBond Street Station Upgrade project, where a new tunnel is currentlybeing excavated by the Costain/Laing O’Rourke joint venture,perpendicular to and actually touching the Royal Mail tunnel above.

The latter conditions presented an opportunity for CSIC to measurethe performance of an existing tunnel in an extreme engineeringscenario and data is currently being collected and collated.

The monitoring devices deployed include:• wireless sensor network (WSN) displacement transducers• fibre optic strain sensors• wireless linear potentiometric displacement transducers (LPDTs)• photogrammetric monitoring

CSIC’s bespoke combination of different devices, featuring existinginstrumentation currently used by industry and new image correlationtechniques, including CSattAR Photogrammetric Monitoring – a newdigital image correlation (DIC) technology – captured the variousstrains and modes of deformation and, in addition, provided valuablecomparative data.

This combined instrumentation created a unique ‘Smart Tunnel’capable of measuring and monitoring the structural performance andstress levels of the older tunnel as the new, large Crossrail tunnelswere excavated immediately below.

Impact and benefitsThe impact of CSIC’s Smart Tunnel monitoring has deliveredmeasurable benefit to asset owners: • the digital image correlation technique measured tunnel

movements at sub-millimetre scale using digital images taken atdifferent times

• the joint movement and bolt strain measurement techniquesprovided new insights in terms of joint movements, which havenever been measured in such detail before

• the data from the fibre optic distributed strain measurement gavethe overall distortion of the tunnels

• the wireless sensor motes measured tunnel movements in three-dimensional directions

• these insights deliver valuable, accurate and validatedinformation to the asset owner enabling better-informed decisionson the effects of new excavation on existing structures

• the combination and deployment of CSIC’s advanced sensingtechnologies allows us to understand the engineeringperformance of cast iron tunnels, which exist in many parts of London

• the knowledge gained from this project will be shared with assetowners and industry to assess other cast iron tunnels in London,to build safe and long-lasting tunnels for the future and,ultimately, deliver benefit to clients, contractors and tax payers

“CSIC’s monitoring technologies assisted inunderstanding the deformation mechanism ofa number of cast iron tunnels subjected totunnelling induced movements. Prior to thetrials these deformation mechanisms were notwell understood. The success of these trials,and in particular the photogrammetry, has ledArup to further develop its relationship withCSIC. This has led to the intent tocommercialise the photogrammetry monitoringtechnique under the name CSattAR. The costadvantage and improved risk managementthat photogrammetry offers has generatedsignificant interest with a number of potentialmonitoring contractor customers.”

Mike Devriendt, Associate Director, Arup

New technologies create CSIC’s Smart TunnelMehdi Alhaddad, Matthew Wilcock, C.Y.Gue, Heba Bevan

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Filming of the installation of CSattAR photogrammetric technology in the Royal Mailcast iron tunnel, London

The projectCSIC is currently working in collaboration with Industry Partner CERNand Arup engineers to identify suitable remote monitoringtechnologies to help maintain tunnels and other infrastructure at theEuropean Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland, whichare showing some signs of movement at certain sections.

The radioactive environment inside the tunnels makes severalconventional monitoring technologies unsuitable for long-termmonitoring as the radiation affects their performance.

CERN has a variety of tunnels with a total length of approximately80km. A 27km ring tunnel, constructed in the 1980s, houses theLarge Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerfulparticle accelerator. Access at many sections of the tunnels is limiteddue to the radioactive environment making maintenance difficult. Withcertain tunnel sections showing some signs of movement, long-termmonitoring is essential, but effective maintenance requires a betterunderstanding of the long-term behaviour of the tunnels.

ApplicationsCSIC is monitoring critical sections of the tunnels and undergroundcaverns using distributed fibre optic sensing, 3D laser scanning andcomputer vision technology.

CSIC’s monitoring delivers a long-term commitment to providingcontinuous data about the structural health of the CERN tunnels.CSIC’s technologies are robust enough to survive the extremelydemanding environmental conditions and present minimalmaintenance costs. The ability to offer spatially continuous databuilds confidence about the current and future condition of theunderground structures.

To date, two tunnel sections and an underground cavern have beeninstrumented and are being monitored with CSIC technologies. Thisproject will continue until late 2017 and the CSIC team is training

CERN engineers to ensure the monitoring and maintenanceprogramme can continue autonomously. Six Arup and CERNengineers attended a two-day CSIC course on fibre optic sensing inCambridge in December 2014, followed by on-site training at CERNin February 2015.

Impact and benefits• the installed sensors provide long-term sensing data of CERN

assets and create a database of infrastructure behaviouralpatterns. This will be coupled with engineering analysis of long-term performance of CERN tunnels conducted by CSICresearchers

• CERN will know if its assets can survive under extreme radiationconditions during the operation of the experiments

• CSIC’s fibre optic technologies offer a cost-effective solution as there is minimal maintenance cost of the fibres and acomparatively low operative cost of the fibre optic analysers

• civil engineers will be able to better understand the long-termbehaviour of tunnels and underground structures over their entirelife history and additionally investigate how these structuresrespond to radioactivity

“It is a credit to your team that CSIC was able

to complete an installation in such a complex

environment having never visited before. It

says a lot about the team’s skill that at no time

was the intervention disruptive to the Atlas

team and in no way impacted on the CERN

operations. I am really looking forward to the

results from this particular trial and hope that

we can expand the installation in the near

future.”

Richard Morton, Civil Engineer, CERN

CSIC and CERN: monitoring science and innovationKenichi Soga, Cedric Kechavarzi, Loizos Pelecanos

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The ATLAS detector, one of the particle detector experiments constructed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN


The projectsCSIC has worked on two projects this year to embed fibre opticcables in tunnel segments, to provide improved understanding of theperformance of the segments during installation and operation.

The first project, on National Grid’s new 32km power tunnel belowLondon, is a collaboration with Industry Partner Costain. This projectinvolves tunnelling in soft ground with a tunnel-boring machine, withrapid installation of the concrete ring segments inside the machine. As the lining comes out from the machine, the annulus between thering and the soil is filled with pressurised grout. Simultaneously themachine pushes against the end of the installed ring to move forward.

The second project is a collaboration with Hochtief on the Crossrailtunnel contract 310, from Plumstead to North Woolwich, where thetunnels are mainly constructed in chalk (most tunnels in centralLondon are built in London Clay/Lambeth Group) with a large waterhead above it at the deepest point, where the tunnels run under theRiver Thames.

ApplicationsAt the National Grid site, CSIC’s fibre optics are providing insights intothe complex loads applied to the linings during construction. Bybuilding a detailed picture at all stages, CSIC will elucidate the natureand magnitude of the loading applied to the segments ‘from cradle tograve’. This will provide unique and invaluable information of tunnellining performance to industry and help optimise future designs.

At the Hochtief/Crossrail project, CSIC’s combined instrumentationhas accurately measured and monitored the behaviour of tunnelsegments in chalk, the effect of loading caused by tidal changes, andthe behaviour at cross passages connecting the two running tunnels.This has provided new data at a level of detail that has, until now, notbeen available to industry.

Impact and benefitsBy introducing instrumentation at the start of construction, CSIC wasable to collect data regarding complex construction loading:• at the curing stage in the factory• during transportation • throughout the entire tunnel construction process• during cross passage construction

This data:• provides insights into the behaviour of tunnel segments • informs optimised future designs

“National Grid, through the London PowerTunnels project, is delighted to facilitate thepioneering work being carried out by CSIC on both the Fibre Optic Strain Sensing and the Computer Vision research and development projects. Developing newtechnology and methods for monitoring thestructural health of tunnels is expected to be of great benefit to National Grid in the future,using techniques that can potentially be further adapted to a broad range ofinfrastructure asset monitoring. CSIC has demonstrated a high level of ingenuity and endeavour and we look forward to working with them to the successful completionof the projects.”

Mark Farmer, Project Engineer, London PowerTunnels, National Grid

Impact of fibre optic measurements in segmental tunnel linings for National Grid and CrossrailMatthew Wilcock, Saleta Gil-Lorenzo, Mohammed Elshafie, Kenichi Soga

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Tunnel lining segments awaiting installation in the National Grid Power Tunnel

WHY MEASURE?ADDING VALUETO DECISIONMAKING

The Forth Road Bridge, Scotland. CSICsurveyed the Forth Road Bridge in 2014 foruseful kinetic energy that could be harvested toself-power a network of sensors to monitor thebridge’s condition during operation. In 2015CSIC sensors powered by CSIC vibrationenergy harvesters will be tested

“CSIC’s strength in developingand applying innovative wirelesssensor technologies anddistributed fibre optic strainsensors in real field environmentsis unrivalled and has attractedindustry acclaim and awards”


Currently there are demands for hundreds ofbillions of pounds to be spent repairing andmaintaining bridges around the world. Converting our critical bridges into ‘smarter’bridges offers the opportunity to significantlyreduce the expenditure needed by providing thekey information to prioritise investment inupgrading these structures.

A key objective of CSIC is to provide theevidence base to support decision makingwhen owners and operators make choices inrelation to infrastructure investment. Inparticular, our goal is to answer the keyquestions of whether a structure is safe, is itperforming as expected and required, is anyintervention or maintenance needed and howlong will the structure last?

The last 10 years have seen significantdevelopments in sensor technology with anattendant increase in the monitoring ofstructures. In particular, a number of criticalelements within our national transportinfrastructure, such as tunnels and bridges, are being monitored to validate theirperformance, help inform maintenancestrategies and warn of any potential problemsdue to damage or deterioration.

CSIC’s strength in developing and applyinginnovative wireless sensor technologies anddistributed fibre optic strain sensors in real fieldenvironments is unrivalled and has attractedindustry acclaim and awards. But building onthis success requires constant focus on thevalue of our technologies to the end users; andone of the questions we are researching atCSIC is how do we demonstrate the benefits –the value – that such systems deliver?

On a new construction site, monitoring is oftenused to check for deformations of adjacentexisting structures to give warning of potentialdamage or to confirm the geometry or stability

of elements during erection. Embeddingsensors in new structures provides theopportunity to measure performance throughouta structure’s life.

However, the benefits to be derived fromaccumulating such data may not accrue untilmany years in the future and the beneficiariesmay also be others than the original designer,contractor or initial owner. Thus a whole-lifeperspective on the cost of designing, buildingand operating a structure is essential if the truebenefit of monitoring is to be recognised. Inparticular, we need to answer the question: why measure?

In recent years, CSIC has been involved with asignificant number of structural healthmonitoring deployments on a range ofinfrastructure projects of national significance,instrumenting tunnels and geotechnicalstructures as well as several bridges, includingthe Humber Bridge and the HammersmithFlyover, in London.

Measuring undoubtedly offers benefits to theowners and operators of our bridges. OnHammersmith Flyover, our monitoring identifiedwhich bearings under the pier supports hadlocked up and were not performing properly. A wireless sensor network deployed in oneanchorage chamber of the Humber Bridgesuspension cables identified that thedehumidification systems were not operatingoptimally and provided the information neededto make significant energy and cost savings.CSIC’s deployments clearly show thatmeasurement can directly provide informationof value to a range of stakeholders involvedwith the operation of our infrastructure.

Currently the Centre is instrumenting two newrail-over-road bridges as part of theStaffordshire Alliance, which is a collaborationbetween CSIC Industry Partners Network Rail,Atkins, Laing O’Rourke and VolkerRail, toimprove the West Coast mainline. CSIC isextensively monitoring the Staffordshire bridges to gain a better understanding of theoverall performance of the structures andclearly demonstrate the margin of capacity (or safety margin) so they can be utilised totheir full potential.

CSIC is already making an impact on industryby delivering a range of new technologiesdesigned to overcome specific engineeringchallenges and provide valuable information toasset owners.

Professor Campbell Middleton Co-Investigator, CSICLaing O’Rourke Professor of Construction Engineering University of Cambridge

The CSIC deployment team at work on the ForthRoad Bridge, Scotland

Asset management is of increasing interest to industry. Infrastructure owners face thechallenge of balancing cost and risk against a backdrop of decreasing funding andincreasing regulation. The infrastructure and construction industry needs newmethodologies and tools to supportinfrastructure managers to secure the best value for money throughout an asset’s lifetime.

When the ISO 55000 family of standards on asset management was published in 2014, worldwide attention was brought tothrough-life management of physical assets,shifting emphasis from minimising cost torealising value.

CSIC’s asset management research hashelped infrastructure owners in embracing the key message coming from the ISOstandard by providing much-needed clarity ondetermining the value realised from assetsfrom a multi-stakeholder perspective, and how to make value-based asset management decisions.

Over the past year the CSIC AssetManagement team has focussed on thedevelopment of four decision support tools tofurther assist asset managers to makesmarter and proactive decisions.

CSIC’s value-based decision-making toolhelps to systematically determine how anasset contributes to the system’s value, howits condition can affect that value, and how thevalue can be managed by making the rightdecisions. The table below explains how thevalue-based approach compares to thetraditional, cost-based approach.

The second area of focus for the team isinformation; the quality of asset managementdecisions rests on the quality of informationavailable to decision makers.

Our information risk assessment tool helpsinfrastructure owners identify gaps in assetinformation and determine risks posed by poor-quality information to their businessobjectives. This tool helps companies to develop an effective business case for data and information quality improvement initiatives.

CSIC’s tool allows infrastructure owners andmanagers to identify retention needs of assetinformation and assess the risk of informationloss in the long-term due to a variety of

challenges including deterioration of storagemedia, inaccessibility of different file formatsand software applications.

The Asset Management team’s final area offocus has been to understand the challengesin futureproofing infrastructure assets andsystems against disruptions over the assets’and systems’ long lifecycles. Ourinfrastructure futureproofing tool helpsdecision makers in systematic assessmentand planning for future needs of infrastructuralassets. A set of futureproofing criteria –identified through a series of workshops andengagement with our Industry Partners – is currently providing the guideline forinfrastructure futureproofing.

Throughout last year CSIC collaborated withIndustry Partners to test and demonstrate ourtools on live sites.

These include:• demonstrating the value-based decision-

making tool with: London Underground, tofocus on seepage-repair strategy fortunnels; Cambridgeshire County Council,to focus on bridge maintenanceprioritisation; and Surrey County Council,to focus on a replacement strategy forhighway protection barriers

• information risk assessment of bridges atCambridgeshire and Hertfordshire CountyCouncils

• information futureproofing of bridges forHertfordshire County Council and tunnelsand pumps at Crossrail

• infrastructure futureproofing assessmentat Liverpool Wastewater Treatment Workswith Costain and United Utilities as part of the United Utilities Process Alliancejoint venture

ASSETS: MOVING MINDSETS FROMLEAST-COST TO BEST-VALUEAPPROACH

Dr Ajith Parlikad Co-Investigator, CSICSenior Lecturer Institute forManufacturingUniversity of Cambridge

Core focus

Management philosophy

Stakeholder focus

Impact on service

Difficulty

Cost-based (traditional)Cost

Minimise expenditure while maintainingsatisfying performance requirements

Decision maker

Maintain maximum service levels

Well-established body of knowledge

Value-based (recommended)Cost, risk, performance

Maximise performance and minimise riskwhile satisfying budgetary constraints

All stakeholders of the asset (e.g. owner,operator, user, regulator)

Explore innovative approaches to improveservice levels

Concepts not well understood in theory andpractice


The projectCSIC’s futureproofing assessment and planning tools assist assetintensive infrastructure companies to:• develop strategies to futureproof information• allow decision makers to collect data and secure its

long-term availability • help identify what the lasting value will be for an infrastructure

CSIC’s futureproofing tool has been successfully piloted on LiverpoolWastewater Treatment Works (LWwTW) with United Utilities andCostain to meet increasing wastewater treatment demand due tolong-term population growth while keeping the River Mersey clean.

The existing wastewater treatment works at Sandon Dock becameoperational in 1991 and was upgraded to its current form in 2000. As a result the Mersey now sustains a wide range of fish. However,the works needed replacement.

Liverpool Wastewater Treatment Works is a £200 million extensionproject to keep the Mersey clean for generations to come. Due forcompletion Spring 2015, the new plant at Wellington Dock will servearound 600,000 residents. The completed plant will be able to copewith 11,000 litres of wastewater a second.

Action and achievementsCSIC piloted the infrastructure futureproofing tool on LWwTW. We have:• identified possible future changes that might affect

LWwTW infrastructure• defined futureproofing criteria in the LWwTW infrastructure

context i.e. resilience, adaptability, replaceability, reusability,system stability and information replaceability

• assessed various assets of LWwTW infrastructure (e.g. pumps,buildings, piping, screens) against the futureproofing criteria

• defined futureproofing targets against assets• conducted gap analysis of current and targeted futureproofing

goals for assets• tested usability and usefulness of the infrastructure

futureproofing tool

Impact and benefitsApplication of the futureproofing tool has provided direct benefits toLWwTW infrastructure supplying information to support: • assessment of the suitability of pump, building, piping and

screen assets when considering the design of upgrades and new facilities for long-term use and maintenance

• selection of a variety of water and wastewater process asset upgrades

• embedding the infrastructure futureproofing tool/criteria in risk management process/risk register and stakeholder management process/stakeholder map

• driving innovation and improvement in the industry for future projects

• informed decision making• through-life value benefits• improved infrastructure futureproofing strategies to enhance

resilience of infrastructure to climate change impacts

“During the past 12 months I have beenworking with CSIC and been introduced to the concept of infrastructure futureproofingand the benefits it can achieve whendeveloping solutions for use in the waterindustry. The use of CSIC’s infrastructurefutureproofing tool provides real value in the assessment of the suitability of assetswhen considering the design of upgrades and new facilities for long-term use andmaintenance. The use of the tool should help with the selection of a variety of water and wastewater process asset upgrades thus helping drive innovation and improvement in the industry for future projects.”

Andy Fielding, Performance Manager for CostainWater Sector

Testing the water: infrastructure futureproofing for Liverpool Wastewater Treatment Works Tariq Masood

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Liverpool Wastewater Treatment Works. Picture courtesy of Liverpool Wastewater Treatment Works

The projectCambridgeshire County Council is responsible for the maintenance ofmore than 1500 bridges of various types, ages, and usage patternsacross the county. The bridges include some with heritage status andothers of strategic importance with very high traffic volume.

Action and achievementsThe council has to determine the annual maintenance tasks requiredacross the bridge portfolio while working with pressing budgetconstraints; prioritising maintenance activities and justifyingexpenditure to funders is key. Last year CSIC’s Asset Managementteam worked closely with maintenance engineers and planners at thecouncil to develop a bridge maintenance prioritisation tool to orderannual maintenance activities considering:• the value generated by the task • the cost of maintenance• the risks posed by the condition of the bridge to the safety and

functionality of the bridge• factors including heritage status and wider impact on the road

network incorporating the needs of all stakeholders

The tool complements a three-phase approach:• develops a valuation scheme for bridges based on criticality to

the network operation• develops a value-map for the bridge that identifies how the

condition of the bridge affects the various value drivers • uses the value-map and the valuation scheme to quantify the

effect of maintenance activities and prioritise activities on thebasis of value-for-money

As the Excel-based tool uses a simple scoring scheme, it is practicaland easy to understand and implement. Results from CSIC’s tool

were compared with the council’s previous prioritised list for bridges. This offered validation and revealed new data useful forfuture planning.

Impact and benefitsCSIC’s bridge maintenance prioritisation tool enabled the council tomake better-informed decisions:• helped bridge managers at the council to justify the annual

expenditure on bridge maintenance and to clearly prioritisemaintenance activities to ensure maximum value for money spent

• engagement with asset managers at the council led to a widerappreciation of the value-based approach to asset management, potentially paving the way for establishing a step-change in the way assets are managed across the council’swider asset portfolio

• could be adapted for use by other councils and bridge ownerspotentially generating a wide-scale impact

“The tool will allow us to prioritise themaintenance activities on our bridges annually based on the provision of serviceto the bridge users, risk to structural integrity,and the cost of maintenance. It provides uswith a degree of confidence to justify theexpenditure and programming of our highway structures to target our limitedresources to the benefit of the localcommunities.”

Gareth Guest, Area Bridge Manager atCambridgeshire County Council

Bridging the gap: a value-based approach to maintenanceRaj Srinivasan, Phil Catton, Gokcen Yilmaz

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St Ives Bridge, Cambridgeshire, a fifteenth century bridge forming part of the CSIC and Cambridge County Council bridge maintenance portfolio. Picture courtesy ofCambridge News, Cambridge Newspapers Ltd


RESHAPING CITIES THROUGHSMART INFRASTRUCTURE

Dr Ying JinCo-Investigator, CSICSenior LecturerDepartment of ArchitectureUniversity of Cambridge

Cities worldwide face enormous social,political, economic and environmental change.CSIC Cities team is developing andimplementing new systems and techniques to help cities embrace change throughreshaping infrastructure.

Over the past year our work has focused onmethods that apply smart, digital technologiesto allow cities to reconfigure usage of the builtenvironment. We have investigated theemerging barriers to the implementation ofsmart technologies in existing regulations,standards and business practices at the cityscale. This will help governments, institutions,businesses and communities to keep in stepwith rapidly evolving technologies, unleashnew sources of funding, and extend inclusive,liveable, green urban areas.

To achieve this, CSIC has worked closely withgovernment agencies and Industry Partners todevelop draft standards and to translate ournovel modelling techniques into practicalsolutions for infrastructure investment designand appraisal.

CSIC has been an active part of:• the British Standards Institute (BSI)

Committee for Smart Infrastructure(SDS/001/08). This plays a key role in theInternational Organisation forStandardisation (ISO) TechnicalCommittee TC268 in drafting standards forsmart cities and smart infrastructure

• the BSI steering groups, which publishedthe UK Publicly Accessible SpecificationPAS180 on the vocabulary for smart cities,PAS182 on digital data concept models forsmart cities, and PD 8101 guide to the roleof the planning and development processof smart cities

• the UK Smart Cities Advisory Group• a new BSI initiative to investigate the

standards for City Datasets

Our work is attracting international interest.The Cities team convened two workshops onrail-led urban innovation, in Cambridge in April2014 and San Francisco in October 2014.

Within the UK, the Department for Transportand Transport for London (TfL) has invitedCSIC to present our adaptive zoningtechnique. This technique is a novel way toenlarge the modelled geographic area (to, forexample, the whole of the British Isles or eventhe EU), speed up computer model simulationtests, and account for nationally importanttraffic on congested local transport links.

Transport for London has offered data,practical models and advice on policy tests forfurther research leading to beta-testing of aroad traffic assignment model capable ofassessing the demand for car, bus, lorry, cycleand pedestrian movements in complex Londonstreets. This work will input into the on-goingtransformation of roads, land use andassociate infrastructure in the UK.

Closer to home, CSIC is part of the Visionsand Growth working group of CambridgeAhead – a business and academic member group dedicated to the successfuland sustainable growth of the Cambridge city region.

Concentration of Foursquare locations in westernEurope (December 2014). Image produced byVassilis Zachariadis, CASA and CSIC

The projectThe potential of low-grade geothermal energy for heating andcooling buildings and infrastructure at city scale is beinginvestigated by CSIC with funding from BP. Planning this system at city scale could make a radical step change towardsreaching medium to long-term renewable energy and CO2emission targets.

ApplicationsCSIC has developed a Geographical Information System (GIS)-based city-scale simulation model to estimate how many GSHPscould be installed in the city without losing control of the groundthermal capacity. The novel model is used to quantify the degree to which the system can contribute to meeting building energydemands. The case study is implemented for the whole of the City of Westminster in London.

In the model, building energy loads and thermal properties,underground temperatures and borehole installation designs arestructured as fine-grained 3D data maps in order to measure in detailthe distribution of GSHP capacity to demand. A highly efficient androbust simulation model results indicating where the highest GSHPpotentials are and how to optimise the GSHP installations.

CSIC has also established a future options model for incorporatingGSHP in multi-storey business premises and apartments. Thismodel accounts for uncertainties such as energy prices, buildingenergy loads and long-term GSHP performance.

Impact and benefits• city scale planning can make a step change towards reaching

medium to long-term renewable energy and CO2 targets • flexible solutions that embed future GSHP options can

significantly contribute to sound financial performance• CSIC research highlights when to invest in GSHPs, building

design and underground space configuration, and the utilisationof low-grade geothermal energy under dense urban areas

Saving energy: ground source heat pump(GSHP) applications at city scaleRuchi Choudhary

“This study provided a detailed understanding ofthe links between GIS energy maps, possiblelayouts for GSHP closed loop boreholes and theground heat storage system. It shows that GSHPsystems can be run in densely populated areaswithout depleting the geothermal resource.”

Duncan Nicholson, Vice Chairman of the Ground

Source Heat Pump Association

The projectCSIC research has transformed adaptive zoning from a heuristicspatial modelling tool into a spatial economic method based onrobust theories of home and job location choices.

Our new economic interpretation of the adaptive zoning methodenables it to be used for appraising the business cases of majortransport infrastructure investment projects. CSIC’s method is beingimplemented in a state-of-the-art land-use and spatial equilibriummodel that not only tests for the direct effects in reducing cardependency and congestion/overcrowding, but also for indirectimpacts including business productivity and housing demand.

ApplicationsCSIC’s adaptive zoning approach translates location choiceproblems, which typically scale by the number of locations squared,into ones of near-linear scalability. Testing on adaptive zoningmodels of home-to-work trips in Southern England (with 3,250 joband home zones) suggests our technique can be as precise asexisting methods with one tenth of computational time and memory.

This step change from existing modelling suites provides a new wayto exploit increasing granularity in data on how people choosewhere to work, live, shop or spend leisure time, and produces moreprecise simulation of the effects of policy interventions.

Impact and benefitsCSIC’s new adaptive zoning method:• enhances spatial economic and transport modelling, making it

possible to model in much higher spatial resolutions, whileallowing a radically expanded study area and new geo-datasets

• develops significantly more realistic scenarios and producesoutputs in a fraction of the time compared with existing models

• opens a new pathway towards cloud-based computing formodel applications involving micro-agents

Adaptive zoning: quantifying costs andbenefits of major transport investmentsVassilis Zachariadis

“Adaptive zoning breaks down long-standingcomputational barriers and sets newexpectations for urban system modelling: tointerrogate the national infrastructure as asystem-of-systems without losing sight of therole of individual transport infrastructureassets and local planning decisions.”

Dr Alex Hagen-Zanker, University of Surrey

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Adaptive zoning model of journeys to work in the Greater South East

Ratio of capacity todemand map ofboreholes aroundbuildings forWestminster


The projectCSIC has a pivotal role in developing smart cities. CSIC providesnew research that feeds the development of a novel and over-arching level of BSI standards for smart cities. These city standardswill support effective integration of the physical, digital and humanrealms to help deliver a sustainable future.

ApplicationsCSIC is actively contributing to the development of PubliclyAccepted Specification (PAS) standards and will put these to thetest over the next 12 months at a number of selected case studysites of successful rail-led regeneration projects, including areasaround London’s King’s Cross-St Pancras, London Olympic Park-Stratford and London Bridge.

Impact and benefitsCSIC case studies will:• further progress our collaborative standards work with BSI,

contributing to further evolution of the publicly availablespecifications through in-depth case studies and committee work

• provide practical examples and evidence of the role of newstandards for smart infrastructure and smart cities in the UKand internationally

BSI shaping the future by setting standardsfor smart cities Claudio Martani

“The work done by CSIC in relation totransport developments will be directlyrelevant to the forthcoming BSI publicationPD 8101 on planning for smart cities. BSIsees continued collaboration with CSIC as avaluable means of ensuring that theknowledge embedded in the standardsprogramme has a firm academic basis. Oneof the aims of the programme, in line withthe objectives of the BIS Smart Cities Forum,is to gain international reputation for theUK’s expertise in smart cities.”

Dan Palmer, Head of Market Development at BSI

The projectCSIC’s research on masterplanning and urban design around largerail stations and major public transport hubs has been used byCSIC Industry Partner Chapman Taylor (Shanghai) and GuangxiHualan Planning & Design Group (Nanning, China) around Nanninghigh-speed railway station. Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, has justbeen connected by high-speed rail to the Guangzhou-Hong Kongmega city, which is expected to transform its economy.

ApplicationsThis collaboration and ongoing project (which started in 2012) hascontributed to the design of a new development zone around thehigh-speed rail station. CSIC’s approach provides a novel model forstation area planning, breaking the conventional mould of isolatingthe station from commercial, institutional and housing development.

The masterplan to develop the station plaza and new Central BusinessDistrict (CBD) around the station, features CSIC’s concepts ofinfrastructure integration and seamless travel to benefit passengersand generate new commercial value from the infrastructureinvestment. The Hualan Group is planning a provincial researchproposal to utilise the expertise from CSIC in ongoing station areaplanning and design in 2015.

Impact and benefitsCSIC’s masterplanning and urban design analytical tools:• lead to more efficient use of valuable land resources• enable better capture of land value increases in future

infrastructure investment • help to establish a new business model that integrates transport

and property investments

Planning and design: reshaping rail stationareas in ChinaYing Jin

“China has in the past five years built more

than 18,000km of high-speed rail lines. Another

10,000km of high-speed rail lines are under

construction or in advanced stages of

planning. However, with few exceptions, rail

stations are poorly integrated with the existing

city and future master plans. It is crucial that

new planning and design concepts are

introduced to China, and we have enjoyed

working with CSIC, using their research to

influence real planning and design decisions.”

Lei Hua, Managing Director of Chapman Taylor

(Shanghai)

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An artist’s impression of the planned recreation and business district next to thenew high-speed rail station in Nanning, southwest China

London Bridge station redevelopment project and the Shard

Delivering impact through thought leadershipis integral to CSIC’s remit. The ICE’s State ofthe Nation 2014 report highlights therequirement to deliver capability and capacityand the need for leadership, addressing boththe requirement to bring together industryleaders to develop strategic initiatives, and todevelop skills in the sector through trainingand dissemination.

As a world-leading expert in its field, CSICshares and transfers knowledge throughthought leadership workshops and events with industry, government and academia to shape thinking and inform and influencedecision makers.

Over the last year, CSIC has held thoughtleadership events in a number of areas:

Rail-led urban innovationCSIC jointly convened a specialist workshopon rail-led urban innovation, in October 2014,with the UK Science and Innovation Network(British Consulate General) in San Francisco,with industry sponsorship from AECOM and Arup.

The workshop engaged closely with majorindustry players, government agencies andstandard setters. CSIC Director Dr JenniferSchooling and Co-Investigator Dr Ying Jinwere among 25 speakers and chairs at theworkshop, which provided a rare opportunityfor experts to hear the first-hand experience ofsuccessful major project delivery and examinecommon lessons and repeatable solutions tohelp reshape major cities around the globe.

The workshop considered innovative examplesto reshape cities including London, Tokyo,New York and San Francisco. The outcomeswill be published as a key reference forbuilding consensus in maximising the societalbenefits of rail investment and set newstandards for emerging high-density areasaround train and metro stations.

Futureproofing infrastructureassetsFutureproofing our infrastructure assets isincreasingly important to industry. Identifyingmethods to support infrastructure managers tooptimise the value of an asset throughout itslifetime is key. CSIC is actively shaping thefuture of futureproofing and the framework andcriteria we have developed are providing newguidelines for industry.

Over the past year, CSIC has brought togetherfutureproofing practitioners and assetmanagers from a range of infrastructurecontexts in two workshops, held in Januaryand April 2014. These events explored thevalue and the approach for integratingfutureproofing into asset managementpractice, addressing the ability of infrastructureto be resilient to unexpected or uncontrollableevents, and to adapt to changing futurecapacity and usage requirements.

Following CSIC’s workshops, the Institute ofAsset Management (IAM) annual conferencein July 2014 ran a special session onfutureproofing, chaired by CSIC’s Dr AjithParlikad, which has generated interest in thisarea within the IAM.

“Our futureproofing workshopsattracted delegates from a widerange of infrastructureorganisations including LondonUnderground, Costain, IBM,Highways Agency andInfrastructure UK, amongothers. CSIC’s tools andmethods are attractingincreasing industry attentionand put CSIC at the forefront ofintegrating futureproofing intoasset management practice.”

Dr Ajith Parlikad, Co-Investigator

CSIC

Bringing together globalexperts in distributed fibreoptic sensingThe inaugural Cambridge Conference on FibreOptic Sensing in Civil Infrastructure (CamFOS)marked another thought leadership first,bringing leading international FOS expertstogether at the University.

The event, held at Robinson College in June2014, showcased the latest developmentsassociated with the advances in fibre opticsensing technology together with fielddeployments; it also demonstrated how fibreoptic sensing could deliver value for designers,contractors and clients to realise thetransformative benefits of incorporating thetechnology in civil infrastructure.

The conference created a unique platform todiscuss the development of fibre optic sensingin civil engineering and established a dialoguebetween all the key stakeholders, which willhelp shape future utilisation of the technologyand commercial practice.

“The Cambridge conferencewas a unique get-together of allsignificant experts in the field offibre optic sensing in civilinfrastructure. The right mixtureof representatives fromacademia, instrumentmanufacturers and civilengineering infrastructureowners provided the perfectbasis to develop new ideas forthe further advancement offibre optic monitoring.”

Professor Werner Lienhart, Headof the Institute of EngineeringGeodesy and MeasurementSystem at Graz University ofTechnology

DELIVERING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP:WORKING WITH INDUSTRY,GOVERNMENT AND ACADEMIA

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CSIC sensing technologies have attractedindustry acclaim, nominations and awardsthroughout the year, acknowledging thestrength of CSIC’s innovative approach andeffective collaboration with industry:• CSIC won the prestigious Ground

Investigation and Monitoring Award for theSmart Tunnel and was shortlisted for threeseparate category awards at theInternational Tunnelling & UndergroundSpace Awards 2014

• CSIC’s Bridging the Knowledge Gap inLondon's 'Secret Tube' was shortlisted forthe British Construction Industry (BCI)Product Design Innovation Award 2014

• The UtterBerry, an intelligent sensingtechnology developed by CSIC PhDstudent Heba Bevan, won the PremierAward at the Chartered Institute ofBuilding International Innovation &Research Awards 2014

• The UtterBerry won the Crossrail BestPractice/Innovation Award for contractorsCostain-Skanska who deployed thetechnology at a partially sealed aditcomplex at its Eleanor Street site in London

Ongoing success • Building on this success, CSIC projects

and UtterBerry have received no less thansix nominations for the GroundEngineering Awards 2015 with the finalresults scheduled in June

• CSattAR and UtterBerry have beenshortlisted in the Company Innovationsection of the Construction NewsSpecialist Awards 2015

In the media • CSIC made front-page news on the

award-winning, monthly flagship magazine of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Civil Engineering whichreaches an audience of 140,000 civilengineers worldwide

• CSIC’s Smart Tunnel featured in the BBCtechnology flagship programme, Click,which was broadcast around the world

• CSIC’s Head, Professor Robert Mair, wasinterviewed by the Financial Times aboutthe effects of London’s subterraneanbuilding boom

• A video featuring CSIC’s work went viral.London Evolution Animation (LEA)attracted more than 350,000 YouTube hitsand unprecedented numbers of re-tweetsfrom @guardiancities and @guardian

• CSIC is a monthly contributor toInfrastructure Intelligence, the industry go-to independent digital and print title,produced by the Association forConsultancy and Engineering. CSICproduces articles written by members ofthe team highlighting new technologies,research and industry deployments

• New Civil Engineer: Where the SmartMoney is, by Ben Cronin. Interview with

CSIC Director, Dr Jennifer Schooling andCSIC Business Development Manager,Phil Keenan

• CSIC’s Head, Professor Mair and CSICPhD student Matthew Wilcock talkedabout the relevance of CSIC’s work togovernment and industry on the Institutionof Engineering and Technology (IET)online news programme made inassociation with ITN Productions,highlighting the importance and relevanceof research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

• CSIC Head, Professor Robert Mair was aguest speaker at the Hay Festival, one ofthe most prestigious literary festivals in the world

AWARDS, NOMINATIONS ANDMEDIA

CSIC, winners of the Ground Investigation and Monitoring Award at the 2014 InternationalTunnelling & Underground Space Awards

“CSIC’s articles are among the best read on the InfrastructureIntelligence website because they give the infrastructure communityinsight and advance warning of innovation and new thinking that willchange and challenge the sector. From wireless sensing andintelligent infrastructure to the need to consider what is appropriatedevelopment, the informative pieces are top reads for our audience.”

Jackie Whitelaw, Associate Editor, Infrastructure Intelligence

CSIC’s Business Development and KnowledgeTransfer team works closely with industry toidentify and understand key issues andchallenges in order to design, develop anddeliver effective and repeatable solutions.

CSIC’s vision to transform the infrastructureand construction industries through smarterinformation is supported and shaped by our 41Industry Partners, who bring valuable frontlineexperience to the working relationship.

This unique collaboration offers benefits andvalue to both parties as well as the widerinfrastructure community; testing our new toolsand technologies at real field sites on liveprojects accelerates the timeframe for thesedevices to become part of the constructionindustry mainstream.

CSIC’s Business Development and KnowledgeTransfer team works across a number of areasto achieve its goals:

Deployment – providing robustsolutionsIn 2014 CSIC’s Deployment team gathered fullstrength with four installation engineers joiningCSIC, supported by a team of secondees fromCSIC Industry Partners including Arup,CH2MHill (Halcrow Group) and MottMacDonald. Our secondees provide anotherlevel of expertise and enable CSIC to vary the

skill set in our deployment teams to effectivelymeet project requirements.

We now have a full complement of engineersand technicians monitoring infrastructure,installing sensors and implementingprocedures and protocols, developed by CSIC,at major sites around the UK.

Over the last year this has included:• Crossrail’s Liverpool Street Station and

Paddington Station developments wherewe are monitoring the structures duringconstruction to better understandperformance and validate design codesand assumptions

• London Bridge Station Redevelopment,with Industry Partner Costain, where CSICis applying a range of monitoringtechniques to both the existing stationstructures and new structures

• Victoria and Albert Museum extension,with Industry Partner Arup, where CSIC isconducting tension pile monitoring tounderstand pile performance

• Norton Bridge, near Stafford, as part of amajor upgrade to the West Coast MainLine, working with Industry Partner LaingO’Rourke, instrumenting a new rail-over-road bridge to deliver new insights intohow bridges function and respond to loaddynamically and to validate structure design

Developing the value chainDelivering advanced sensing solutions to theconstruction industry requires a full value chainto be in place: • CSIC is working with key technology

suppliers, developing the capabilities ofinstallation service companies and workingtowards standardised installation methods

• CSIC researchers are collaborating withIndustry Partners developing newinstrumentation and sensors that delivercost breakthroughs in sensing to provide abetter-value proposition

• CSIC is rolling out new technologies thatmake sensors easier to install and moreeconomical than ever before, including anew prototype distributed strain sensinganalyser available later in 2015

Training and disseminationSharing information and knowledge is key toadvancing industry adoption of innovativesolutions. CSIC is developing a range ofroutes for disseminating the advances we aremaking in smart infrastructure andconstruction, including:

Specialist training coursesOver the past year, CSIC has developed anddelivered a series of specialist one and two-day training courses including a bespokeprogramme designed for our Industry PartnersCERN and Arup covering the techniquesrequired to install and use fibre optic strainsensing for monitoring infrastructure assets.

Other courses delivered include: • Distributed Optical Fibre Strain Sensing for

Geotechnical Infrastructure Monitoring(February 2014)

• Competitive EU proposal & Consortia –Horizon 2020 (July 2014)

• Fibre Bragg Grating Optical Sensing forStructural Health Monitoring (September2014)

• Automatic Identification (AutoID) for SmartAssets and Cities (October 2014)

Best practice guidesCSIC is also developing a series of bestpractice guides to be published in conjunctionwith the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE)over the coming year. These guides will cover:• distributed fibre optic strain sensing• wireless sensing networks• structural health monitoring of

infrastructure assets• asset management and monitoring

The guides are intended to be wide-reaching,informing and supporting the constructionindustry, infrastructure owners and operators,manufacturing, electrical and informationsectors in the installation and operation ofnovel sensing technologies for assetmonitoring and management.

Case studies CSIC’s Cities team is producing additionalpublications to transfer knowledge to the widerbusiness and academic communities, with aparticular focus on planning and development.These documents will be published inconjunction with ICE and RIBA (Royal Instituteof British Architects) and rolled out over thenext 18 months. The first one is due forrelease mid-2015.

Inviting new opportunitiesThis year also brings new opportunities toCSIC. We will:• embark upon our first water infrastructure-

sensing project using fibre optic sensorsand monitoring up to 5km of sewagewatercourse for leaks with Severn Trent

• continue to develop demonstrator

DRIVING INNOVATION INTOPRACTICE

Phil Keenan Business DevelopmentManager and Cedric Kechavarzi Knowledge Transfer Manager

Cedric Kechavarzi (left) and Phil Keenan


projects in a wide variety of newinfrastructure asset classes, collaboratingwith our Industry Partners to demonstrate our capabilities and deliver valuable innovations

• expand our interactions with SMEs,helping them to bring their innovativesolutions to the market through focusedevents with construction and infrastructuresector clients

Building the future of CSICWorking with our Industry Partners hasenabled CSIC to achieve significant successover the past year, including industry awards,nominations and wide media interest.

CSIC’s Business Development and Knowledge Transfer team will continue to build on these achievements in the comingyear. This will include:

• delivery of further deployments and casestudies in CSIC’s technical theme areas todemonstrate technologies and explorenew markets

• delivery of robust installation methods in sensing systems including fibre optics (Brillouin, Fibre Bragg, Ramansensing), wireless sensor networks and MEMs technologies

• dissemination of successfulimplementation of innovations at industryevents including the NCE/GroundEngineering conference series in 2015

• continuing to develop CSIC as anucleating point to assist partnercompanies to engage and benefit from arange of other innovation-related activitiesand programmes

• further technology showcase events forsupply chain partners to explore novelapplications of technology with

infrastructure and construction partners• developing capacity to engage with SMEs

and start-ups, exploring specific targetedactivities for SMEs

CSIC’s work has the potential to transform theinfrastructure industry and help the UKbecome a world leader in the fields of sensingtechnology, asset management and smart citydevelopment. We cannot achieve this alone –working with industry is the key to our successand we always welcome approaches fromIndustry Partners seeking to collaborate.

As our Annual Review demonstrates, CSIChas made significant progress in the past year.

We look forward to working closely andproductively with industry to build on thissuccess and share our expertise andexperience with a wider community.

CSIC has developed a secondment model involving Industry Partnersseconding staff to CSIC for a period of six to 12 months. This brings arange of benefits:• for CSIC – we have access to high quality staff with the relevant

industry experience and knowledge, for periods of six to 12months; dissemination to industry partner organisations throughstaff working in CSIC and returning to their parent organisations

• for the seconding Industry Partner – an opportunity to developstaff with potential to be exposed to CSIC technologies in moredepth, and to bring those skills and knowledge back into theorganisation when the secondee returns

• for the secondee – an opportunity to develop a range of skills,contributing to professional development, and participate at theearly stages of technology and methodology development

CSIC has been privileged to welcome five secondees over the last 12 months from Industry Partners Aeroflex, Arup, CH2M Hill and Mott MacDonald.

The secondmentKatie Liu, an engineer with CSIC Industry Partner Mott MacDonald, was seconded to CSIC in June 2014 for six months.Katie worked on a number of projects focussing on utilising fibre optic sensing in field applications and gathering data for analysis to lead to future improved performance-based design and construction processes.

ApplicationsAs part of the CSIC deployment team, Katie worked on majorengineering projects and training activities including: • Crossrail Liverpool Street Station – assisted in fibre optic

installation to study the effect of the breakout of the cross-passagetunnels on a concourse tunnel and data collection on site

• United Utility Shaft, in Manchester – assisted in splicing multiplefibre optic cables installed within the circular shaft to understandhoop stress generated during excavation and data collection

• Crossrail Limmo Shaft – based on the data from fibre opticsinstalled within diaphragm wall panels during excavation andcollated by other CSIC colleagues, Katie carried out dataanalysis using MATLAB to give better understanding on bending,hoop and temperature strains of the shaft. This will contribute tomore informed decision making and potential savings inmaterials, programme and cost in the future

• MM Water and Environment – organised meetings betweenCSIC and the MM Cambridge office with a view to collaboration,knowledge dissemination and broadening the deployment of fibreoptics in civil infrastructures in the water environment

• training activities included laboratory sessions, site visits,attending meetings, conferences and health and safety courses

Impact and benefitsThe secondment offered Katie personally, and Mott MacDonald as acompany, a range of benefits including:• a better understanding of fibre optic sensing including testing, data

processors and types of fibre and data analysis methodology• gaining field experience in fibre optic installation including fibre

protection, splicing, data gathering and testing• participating in meetings and conferences attended by

international industrial and research groups

Knowledge exchange on deployment

“I feel truly privileged to be seconded to CSIC.

It was fantastic to be involved in the

deployment of these emergent technologies,

on real projects, gathering data that will

directly impact upon future construction that

my company undertakes.”

Katie Liu, Engineer, Mott MacDonald

Katie Liu, Mott MacDonald secondee, on a deployment with CSIC

CSIC would like to thank our Industry Partners:

Unless credited all photographs have been provided by staff and students at CSIC, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

Infrastructure clients (owners and operators)

Consultants, contractors and asset managers

Technology and information supply chain

Knowledge partners

Email: [email protected]: +44 (0)1223 746976www.centreforsmartinfrastructure.com

@CSIC-IKC

Cambridge Centre forSmart Infrastructureand Construction

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